Memories
by Sabet
Summary: Matt remembers everything important about Wammy's House. Some sweetness, some depresion.


_(Angsty yaoi fluff. If that's not a weird enough way to describe a story, I don't know what is. I own nothing but the plot.)_

* * *

Mello is asleep.

It's really almost cute, Matt decides. As soon as his intense eyes close, he's someone else altogether. As close to peaceful as he'll ever get.

Matt supposes that once, his best friend always looked like this. But that was a long time ago, two or three or ten years ago. He's lost count, and the memories are obscured by a colorful fog, of red and yellow and white and black and grey-blue and milk-chocolate-brown. Every color of life, or at least the ones that matter.

Still, he remembers.

---

_Children laugh. It's what they're meant to do, really. Two don't. The youngest of them, serious and quiet and near genius, doesn't matter. The oldest, trying to be almost as good, does._

_"Hey."_

_The blond looks up from his biology textbook. Eight years old and reading high school textbooks for fun._

_"How come you never play with us?"_

_And the blond realizes just how annoying everyone in this school, this orphanage, this any-place-but-home really is. Especially the redhead standing in front of him._

_"Why should I?"_

_Matt, because who else could it be, smiles a little and shrugs. "Because it's fun."_

_"I don't have time for fun. I want to be the very best."_

_"Like no one ever was?"_

_"Well, since L's the best, and I want to be better than him, I guess so," Mello answers, turning a page casually._

_Matt sighs a little, realizing how sad this boy's life must be if he doesn't even know the Pokemon theme song._

---

_Mello doesn't even bother glancing up from his Latin notes. He knows that it's Matt standing behind him. "What do you want?"_

_"Want you to play Mario Kart with me. It's no fun by myself."_

_"Ask someone else. I'm busy."_

_"I already have. They're all busier. And I want to play with you."_

_Mello doesn't answer. Maybe if he stays quiet, the boy will go away._

_"Loser buys winner a bar of chocolate."_

_After a beat, Mello turns, grinning. "You might as well give me the chocolate now. Because I don't lose."_

_Matt grins, too. That wasn't nearly as hard as he'd imagined._

_---_

_Acquaintances become friends become best friends become more. One of Mello's philosophy books had that handwritten on page 221. When he mentions this, Matt laughs._

_This isn't so weird after all, he tells himself. After all, when he'd first seen his friend, boyfriend, best friend, he'd thought Mello was a girl. But he doesn't mention this, because he knows Mello won't laugh._

_Instead, he grabs Mello's hand and kisses him on the cheek. Mello pushes him away, trying to hide the faint pink glow of his cheeks behind a chocolate bar and an eye roll._

_---_

_They go farther into adulthood than fourteen-year-olds should that night. But they're far beyond any other fourteen-year-olds, and besides, they agreed on an age of consent of thirteen._

_Those who know their lives will be short must be greater than those who convince themselves they'll live forever. What both of them believe. Their gospel is intensity in all its forms._

_---_

_"L is dead."_

_Mello says these words with the exact inflection of the text Roger received. No emotion, just a statement of fact. But it's enough to make Matt drop his PSP. Not at the news, since he'd always known this would happen some day, but because he's scared of Mello. What he'll do._

_"Are you okay?"_

_And for a minute, Mello's mask of indifference and rage disappears, and Matt can see the little boy he once was._

_The innocent five-year-old who suddenly found himself alone, without his mom's hand to hold. An old inventor's hand was no substitute._

_The seven-year-old who felt the sudden shock of being only second-best. And he decided to blame it all on himself._

_The kid who could count on one hand the times he'd smiled without his best friend around on one hand, with at least three fingers left over._

_Mello lets out his breath as he collapses into Matt's arms. "No."_

_They sit there for hours, until the sun sets and the moon hides behind storm clouds. Mello tells the story between half-choked sobs, how L hadn't chosen between him and Near, how he'd given up his right to succeed L in a stupid moment of pride, how it hurt so damn much that he was crying right now._

_He doesn't actually speak that last part. But because they are closer than they can ever imagine, Matt understands. He sits Mello up and runs his hand through golden hair._

_They kiss. No intensity now, just friendship and empathy and love. Love most of all._

_Mello closes his eyes for a long time, so long Matt thinks he might have fallen asleep, until the red of held-back tears is all but gone. He stands and walks out of the room, not saying a word._

_He doesn't look back. He doesn't come back._

_---_

Matt rests a hand on Mello's shoulder, remembering the innocence the two of them gave up. Mello stirs. "Matt?" As if there would be anyone else sitting on the side of his bed while he slept.

"Didn't mean to wake you, Mello."

"It's okay."

"Remember Wammy's House?"

"Of course I do. Why?"

Matt smiles. "No reason. Go back to sleep."

Mello closes his eyes again. Matt waits until his breathing is almost regular before kissing him on the forehead.

He wants to be the last thing Mello thinks of.

* * *

_Reviews welcome._


End file.
